Socialism, while it has had it's downsides, has worked for many countries and helped countless poor, working class citizens find jobs and secure a better life.
In Scandinavia, socialism and social systems are widespread. The quality of life is, according to OECD Better Life Index, higher than the average of other countries around the world by a hefty amount. In those countries, everybody is given a fair chance without majorly disrupting the class system to where everybody is the exact same, like in Communism. Overall, socialism increases the quality of life and it helps the economy according to heritage.com.

First off, Scandinavian countries, although they do pay high taxes, aren't socialist, Sweden for example has a parliamentary representative democratic constitutional monarchy. In fact, only 4 current countries are actually socialist [1]. If socialism was so successful, then far more countries would've adopted the government. You say how socialism helps poor citizens find jobs, when socialism,in fact, makes the poor poorer and the rich richer because there is no ambition to break the glass ceiling [2]. No ambition could result in a "lazy" country which results in slow economic growth, so socialism does not help the economy as you stated.

There are numerous disadvantages of socialism, which is the reason why so many countries have dropped the form of government and so few have it in today's time. Firstly, socialism leads to huge amounts of spending by the government. From showering funds on social benefits to welfare schemes, healthcare to education, right to food and almost every aspect of normal livelihood of people, the state would have to fund everything [2].

Also, as I stated previously, socialism gets rid of the incentive given to those who work hard. Leading to as said, slow economic growth as well as low national ambition, little to no advances across numerous topics including science and technology, an inability to obtain the upmost profit from the use of resources, labors and land [3], the lowering amount of businesses in the country because of the high taxes on businesses [2].

Further, socialism requires a huge government and a massive bureaucracy. With limited privatization and more people being in government jobs, there is greater corruption and only a small group of people sitting at the heights of power tend to get richer. Socialism aims to create socioeconomic equality but in the process ends up creating a small super elite populace comprising of people in power and a super poor populace which comprises of every citizen who does a normal job.

In conclusion, socialism no incentive for hard work leads to slow country development and requires high spending by the government, creating a large national debt that may be difficult to pay off. Also, although socialism is often associated with equality, it only makes the poor poorer and the rich richer and is impossible to have complete equality with the inequalities we have with modern societies from gender to race to religion. Similarly, socialism does not create social equality, for it creates a large split between the small super elite populace and the super poor populace. The above reasons are why socialism has failed throughout the ages, is so rarely used in modern society, and will continue to be ignored by countries.

Did someone bring up the rape capital of the world as part of their argument?

Anyway, I will use one example against socialism. You get free college. Your college education is paid for by the government. You grow up, get a job an pay taxes. Those taxes partly go to paying for the education of younger people.

You essentially pay for education either way. In socialism you pay for someone else. You still pay for someone to be educated. Socialism only limits choices. You can choose to not go to college but instead start your own small business. In capitalism that might work. In socialism it never works because you still have to pay for someone else to go to school even though you did not go to school!

Socialism is a scam. It only takes away some of our liberties. Please thing about it more!

In the interest of keeping this debate on track I"d like to point out that Con has misunderstood his own reference. The Wikipedia article "List of Socialist States" lists four Marxist-Leninist socialist states and ten Non-Marxist Leninist.
I doubt that these are the countries Pro has in mind as shining examples of Socialism (although Socialism may well be the very best system for them at their current stage of development).
The Wikipedia article does point out that countries that are not permanently Socialist can still follow Socialist agendas for lengthy periods and it mentions Sweden as an example.